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Michigan is one of the foremost grape-growing states in the America, coming in at number four for overall production, and has been for many years. Largely unaffected by the wine-boom of the seventies, where smaller producing regions began to test their crop against the likes of France, Michigan as a whole has remained largely apprehensive about Vinifera varietals.
Prior to the seventies, Michigan was known for its jam-bound, “foxy” North American varietals, such as Concord, Niagara, and Catawba. These labrusca grapes were used by the Welch’s company which relies on vineyards around Van Buren County, and elsewhere to make its jam. These grapes are native to America and are often collectively reffered to as Labrusca, although a lot of them come from various families of native grapes, and smartly many have been intercrossed with European varietals to create hybrids which are weather and pest resistent but with no foxy flavor, such as Chambourcin, Le Crescent and Baco Noir - these have been a major asset to Michigan in recent years.
Unfortunately, a large area is reserved for the easier and more lucrative labrusca varietals which still occupy the vast majority of vineyard space in Michigan, though thankfully, much of their production is bound for buttered toast. The wine these varietals produce is an offensive, overly-sweet, acetate-smelling concoction reminiscent of Bug Juice. In fact, you can often find bottles of these wines occupying some of the same aisles as Monster Energy at Speedway locally.
The first batches of Vinifera wine-grapes were planted in 1971 by Tabor Hill Winery, now owners of Round Barn Winery and several other local producers. Much like in Texas, the Michigan wine industry is now dominated by hospitality companies opening venues on the property as tourist destinations, multi-day vineyard hostels, and wedding sites. Considering that most of the wineries are along the coast, near the beach, this can be a scenic place for an event. The industry obviously benefits from the increased revenue in-season, allowing them to upgrade winery equipment, and keep a steady income of winery-direct orders.
The problems arise when guests expect scenic vineyards, and instead see the remnants of Bordeaux mixture, mold, botrytis, and other hassles that come along with operating a vineyard in Michigan with Vinifera grapes. It’s much easier build estates around the more easily salable and less precious labrusca, and hybrid vines.
That being said, some estates don’t even produce their own wine, but sell the grapes to negoçiants like St. Julian Winery in Paw Paw, who bottle the yield, blend it, and sell it back - still Michigan fruit, which is more that can be said of places like the Hill Country, where only seventy five percent of the bottle may be from inside the state of Texas.
Until smaller wineries can get a handle on consistent yield production, as the Rhône Valley did in the 80’s, the temporary solution may be to use large negoçiantes as a cooperative. St. Julian Winery, it must be said, has their own line of higher end, mostly vinifera bottlings that are very good. The Braganini Reserve line is named after the owning family of the winery, and several, mostly vinifera varietals, are bottled from fruit grown by local growers, who are noted on the reverse of the bottle.
The choicest of these bottlings is the Braganini Reserve Cabernet Franc, which has been a consistently fine product winning best in class awards throughout the state. This is more of a Bordeaux-like bottling of this varietal, and less comparable to Chinon. These grapes are picked ripe, as Michigans growing season is extended somewhat by lake effect. Strangely, the Lake Michigan Shore AVA is on the same latitude line as Bordeaux and features a maritime climate. There are flavors of ripe black cherry, a bit of pomegranate and black currant. Graphite and some black pepper are the next noticable flavors to boot, and this wine finishes with some long winded cherry flavors with vanilla and anise.
A lot of estates in the Texas Hill Country rely on the production and higher yielding ability of the High Plains AVA for the vast majority of their wine. Unlike in Texas, yields are higher throughout Michigan, and mercifully the weather is becoming more manageable as Michigan vintners learn how to wrangle their yield, and their land more effectively, and maximize the varietals that suit the various AVA’s best.
The sleepy town of Fennville, on the Lake Michigan Shore, is home to Fenn Valley WInery, one of the founding winery in this area. The Welsch family, upon moving from the Chicago area, performed the old winemaker’s adage of turning a large fortune into a small fortune with their sights set on quality wine. After much deliberation, the selected the site in an old Apple Orchard, and planted Riesling. Other wineries followed suit, and Riesling became a major outcropping in Southwest Michigan.
Today, they are one of the largest wineries operational in the state, and have several estates dedicated to fruit wines including the Round Barn, St. Julian, and Fenn Valley wineries. With multiple vineyard sites they continue to specialize in Hybrid, Vinifera and Labrusca varietals. Notably, they were one of the first in the state to begin cultivating Cabernet Franc. This grape variety is well suited to Michigan due to its thicker skins, and earlier ripening times, which allows vintners to avoid the worries of frost. It also buds weeks earlier, allowing it more time to ripen. It sustains colder weather better than Sauvignon as well, and thrives in the sandy soils of Michigan.
The Meritage Blend from Fenn Valley contains their Cabernet Franc, and infrequently it is bottled as a single varietal. The flavor profile is fantastic: striking acidity, a fine tannin and blush fruit flavors indicative of raspberry and rose pedal and pencil shavings. When blended into the Meritage it acts similar to Petit Verdot, and presents nice gunflint and herbaceous character to compliment the softness of the Merlot and harsh tannin of the Cabernet. Overall a very nice, drinkable blend.
Fennville became the first AVA in Michigan in 1981. Because of its initial successes, and the continued proclivity toward fruit wine, a major Michigan export, the Fennville AVA remains the second largest, despite its small acreage at just seventy-five thousand, responsible for forty-five percent of the state’s wine production. It is located in between the quaint, touristy beach-towns of South Haven, and Saugatuck, and follows the Kalamazoo, and Black Rivers inland towards Bangor and Bloomingdale.
This area today, while still a staple for Chardonnay, Cherry Wine, and Riesling, also produces a few higher quality hybrids such as Vidal Blanc, Chambourcin, and Baco Noir. Sometimes wineries are inclined to blend these varietals with each other, and in other cases, some are proprietary blends with Vinifera varietals, in an attempt to negate the foxiness in these higher-yielding hybrids.
In Fennville AVA in particular, the climate is very Bordeaux-Esque, situated right on the Lake Michigan, in between to large tributaries in a very Entre-Deux-Mers style. Much like Entre-deux-Mers, Fennville suffers from powdery mold, and unwanted botrytis, wrought on by the intense humidity from lake effect. Lake effect takes place when cold continental air clashes over the warm, humid Great Lakes and creates storm systems, overcast days, and fog. This happens all year, but is especially prevalent in the winters.
The latitude lines are also very similar, though Fennville is on the 42nd Parallel, and Bordeaux is on the 44th, though this little degree of difference is a world of difference especially with the humidity from lake Michigan factored in. The fogs in the fall when the cold air broaches the dawn, blankets the vineyards in moisture before the afternoon rains soak the landscape and then sun’s rays evaporate what’s left of the moisture the following evening. This subtle diurnal shift at the end of season forces the last sugars from the grapes, while the summer sun ripens the tannin.
The hybrid grape varietals, and labrusca tend to put up with the strain of mold and botrytis much better than Vinifera varieties. With their thick skins, and higher acetaldehyde, they are able to meet yields and fill in lost crop values for the greater AVA, picking up the slack both financially, and in terms of overall hectoliters.
But it isn’t any of the hybrids that I will recommend. Due to the regions similarities with Bordeaux, the plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon seem to display a lot of the same minerality, complexity, graphite flavors, and tobacco notes that are common in Bordeaux. Merlot also is a star in Fennville. Most major area wineries have vineyards chocked full of the stuff for blending with hybrids and other grapes. It thrives in the sandy-clay loam of the Michigan shore.
Cabernet also does well just outside of Fennville. The area surrounding Fennville AVA is aptly titled the Lake Michigan Shore AVA, and it shares a lot of the climatology, and soils. The endoqualfs that can be found on the coast just as lacking in mineral density and fertility as on the shore. They are also just as good draining, with cooling clay blends, and plenty of gravel in the top soils. The Cabernet and Merlot vines here are complemented inland by plantings of the finickier Cabernet Franc, but more on that grape later.
This region stretches from just outside the Fenville AVA, to Lawton, and then down the coast to Baroda, and Stevensville. Soils here are very similar to those in Fennville. with Sandy loam occupying the majority of the area as well as podzol soils of clay loam, sucked dry from their fertility by the coniferous forest that once stretched through this region down into Indiana. Granite stones and limestone crumblings can often be found toward the top of this mess. The sandy soils are fantastic for drainage, and the scattered clay cools the vines. The granite stones refract light back onto the fruit to ripen the skins.
Like Fennville, this area too can be temperamental with regards to weather and cold-snaps during the late harvest season threaten to expend an entire crop, Cabernet being extremely vulnerable due to its proximity to the open air of Lake Michigan. The overcast skies are also a problem delaying Cabernet Sauvignon’s ripening thoroughly, especially in the skins.
This can result in Michigan Cabernet having very robust tannin, which can be a fixable problem with proper light exposure, and adequate pruning. Some vintners in Bordeaux have been known to cut plastic bags, and litter them around the vineyard for light refraction in poor years - Even Bordeaux struggles ripening Cabernet, contrary to what they may seem to think.
Oppositely, Michigan Vintners in this AVA have flocked to Pinot Noir in recent years. The pairing seems obvious: low nitrogen soils, sparse limestone deposits, carved rolling glacial hills make Michigan an obvious choice for Pinot. If you squint hard enough, you can almost see the resemblance to Burgundy - Apart from, of course, every single detail.
Michigan is lakeside and its climate is essentially a freakzoid blend of cold maritime and continental, with strenuous bouts of humidity; which thin-skinned grapes like Pinot Noir tend not to fare well in. The mold and fungus that can catch the vines can ruin whole crops, and vintners need to be extremely careful with this grape, and the sites selected. Thus, grapes need to be planted on the coast, in order to allow breezes to carry though the vineyards and prevent mold. Days of late-summer stagnant air can make a vintner’s hair fall out.
Likewise, in the early season, as bud-break is occurring, the Lake Michigan coast can see frost until May, which can mean loss of crop, and damage to the buds. At the end of season, cold snaps and late-season rain can result in further delayed ripening, and delay of the harvest, but this is not unlike Burgundy, and makes for interesting vintage variation, and vertical tastings.
Because Michigan Summers are often hotter than those of Burgundy, Carneros, and Willamette, jamminess in Pinot can be an affectation, and producers tend to make more of a hybrid Paso Robles style pinot - Though there are a few very serious producers that attempt a Burgundian Pinot on the Lake Michigan Shore. Of course, there are always exceptions.
Wyncroft Winery is one of the wineries that takes Pinot very seriously, not just as a grape to broaden their market. In fact, this grape is a staple for this winery and winemaker James Lester puts forth an incredible effort to ensure the highest quality wine is produced. Notably, there is not an AirB&B on site, and they do not host bachelorette parties.
They do, however, use Dijon clone 777, Pommard 4, and Wadenswil 02a, among others, and specialize in single-vineyard bottling from their famed Avonlea vineyard, planted in 1989. Besides inoculation with a Dijon strain for authenticity, the vineyard is handled without fertilizers, but with the use of lavender, and herbal outcroppings amongst the vines to ward off pests.
The resulting product of this effort left me shocked. I drank an example of this from 2013 next to Mongeard-Mugneret Vosne-Romanée 2014 in a blind tasting, and I honestly thought the Wyncroft was the Premier Cru of the same producer. This wine displayed flavors of sour cherry pie, ripe strawberry, fresh red plum and black licorice. The secondary characteristics came on far stronger than the former. Notes of white truffle, stale hay, and leather blessed the palette. Honestly this wine could pass as a decent Premier Cru. Their Bordeaux Blend, Riesling and Chardonnay are of similar quality - the latter will shed tears, so be weary.
In the “pinky” of the Mitten, near Traverse City, is Leelanau AVA, and the newest AVA, Tip of the Mitt, the former of which which sprung Vinifera vineyards around the late seventies. Between these two AVA’s, the bulk of Michigan wine is produced, at fifty-five percent of the state’s total production. The area produces mostly cherry wine and blueberry wine, two fruits which it is known for nearly exclusively. These wines are interesting to say the least, not as a serious wine, but as refreshing treat for a day at the beach.
They resemble un-carbonated cider in flavor much more closely than wine, especially when you consider the inoculation of natural yeasts and overall sugar content - chaptalization is generally required to start fermentation, and hold residual sugar levels in the finished product.
Of the Vinifera grapes produced here, Riesling seems to shine especially on the limestone and slate soils here. Off-dry Rieslings are extremely common. This area has a great concentration of Limestone, and schist, which allows the vines to retain heat. The soil is sandy and great for drainage, and the riesling here can actually be very impressive, and refreshing. The wines do not yet yield the same complexity as their German, or Austrian Counterparts, but these dune-strewn vineyards offer something very special, and as winemaking techniques improve, I could see this being an impressive area for Riesling given a few years of dedication.
Chardonnay grown here in the northern AVAs is also very good. Interestingly, producers here choose to age in new French Oak Barrique, and the higher-end examples that I’ve tasted are not dissimilar to the village wines of Mâcon - a katana of acidity cutting through a bowl of whipped cream. Green apple and stone fruit flavors a-plenty, these wines reflect their terroir with superb minerality and fantastic balance. Quite a contrast to the buttery, oaky Chardonnays popular in California. Chardonnay also has a solid future in Michigan.
In between the two AVA's, lies an area currently devoid of plantings, where the warming limestone deposits and necessary topography can be found east of Big Rapids, in Newaygo county, and also toward Leroy in the north. This area sees morning fogs in the late season, airflow from lake Michigan, and is inland far enough away from the Lake Effect Storm Systems. Its higher elevation means it’s protected from humidity, and cold snaps in the harvest. The polar continental breezes from Canada rip through the mountains in the summer, and cool the grapes, and the diurnal shift can be as much as twenty degrees in the evenings. I could see a future for some plantings here, where land is cheap, and the growing is tough.
Heat during the days can be as high as eighty-three degrees with an average of seventy-three degrees. Head north to the Big Rapids area, where temperatures are seventy-one degrees, with a high of eighty-one. In regards to precipitation, Michigan summers see consistent rain throughout.
The good draining soils, and surface limestone should warm the roots of the grapes, and keep the berries ripening, and dry. Thorough leafing and guyot trellising can alleviate some of the threats of underpinned wet crop as well.
The only issue left would be production. With talented vintners like those at St. Julien trying crazy delicious blends like Gewürztraminer and Albariño, it’s a wonder that no one has explored into other red varietals yet, like Nebbiolo, or Mencia, or Syrah. At any rate, now, the big focus for Michigan will be continued mastery of the Vinifera varietals it already has, and perhaps some legal distance between the bachelorette party days of the past, as Oregon had done to their success.
That’s All,
~K